My wife always fires back the same wisecrack each time I make a joke about her joining a concert band. For example, we walked past the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts during Tuesday’s Fourth of July parade, where a concert band had assembled in front to fill the morning air with patriotic tunes as the fire trucks and dancers and Boy Scouts marched by. READ

A wave of panic rushed through my body as my co-worker handed me his cell phone. My mind raced through all sorts of possibilities of what I was about to hear.

It was five years ago on a Saturday night in Saratoga Springs. I was settling into the cocktail hour at our annual New York State Press Association convention before the final dinner and round of awards. The weekend festivities were drawing to an end and I was relaxing with a glass of wine, mingling with my fellow writers.

Our institutions and traditions, handed down in America through the generations, are now under assault and seem unsteady, not able to withstand the shock of a new authority sweeping away what once we held as inviolable. READ

In 2009, shortly after New York State passed the ill-advised MTA payroll tax, I found myself in a conversation with a campaign staffer for former state Senator Brian Foley. Mr. Foley had voted in favor of the plan — which added a payroll tax to local businesses in an effort to balance the MTA budget — despite concerns from constituents across Suffolk County who felt they were underserved by the agency. READ

Thanks to a bill signed last month by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, your beloved pet can now be legally buried with you.

The legislation allows New Yorkers to be interred with their pet’s cremated remains at nearly 1,900 nonprofit cemeteries around the state — provided they receive written consent from cemetery officials. READ

It may seem clichéd to say I love reading The Onion, the satirical news website with headlines like “Wall Street Executive Telling Friend How Amazing It Is To See Clinton Live,” but alas it’s true. READ